For goodness' sake

It is all very well making Herculean efforts to buy the best-quality produce, but the way you store, prepare and serve it can seriously affect the nutrients it supplies. Here is our eight-point plan for getting the most out of your food.

1. Add a little oil to a salad. Scientists have found that we absorb virtually none of the precious, disease-fighting carotenes in salad leaves if they are eaten completely nude or with fat-free dressing. Carotenes such as betacarotene, which protects the heart and lungs, and pigments such as lutein and zeaxanthin, which help to prevent age-related blindness, hitch a lift over the intestinal wall by attaching themselves to fat.

2. Do not rinse rice and other grains such as bulgur wheat and couscous before cooking unless the packet specifically tells you to. Washing rice even once can result in as much as 25% of its thiamine, an energy-releasing